Father, I Won’t Do Anything

Hilvenzia’s pupils dilated violently.

As if unwilling to believe, she grabbed Mikael’s arm.

“Does this mean Jaina is also allergic to Shizmel?”

While allergies are not necessarily hereditary, in this case it was undoubtedly inherited from the Tower Lord.

“Are you saying Jaina could die?!”

“…”

“Answer me!”

Hilvenzia, who had been shouting at Mikael, soon closed her mouth, realizing she had become overly excited.

With Jaina currently struggling to breathe, this was no time for quarreling with Mikael.

“…My apologies for raising my voice. I’m distraught.”

“No.”

It was the first sincere apology Hilvenzia had ever offered Mikael since meeting him.

Yet neither seemed to take notice of its significance. At this moment, nothing outweighed Jaina’s peril.

Straining to maintain a steady tone, Hilvenzia asked:

“Then how did the Tower Lord overcome his own brush with death?”

“…From what I know, a high-ranking priest happened to be visiting as a guest at the time.”

“Our Jaina certainly lacks such fortuitous luck.”

Hilvenzia noticed Jaina’s tiny hand tightly clutching Mikael’s robes.

“Hurghh, hurghh…”

Her ragged, increasingly labored breathing. The violent convulsions wracking her small frame.

With a distorted gaze, Mikael grasped Jaina’s outstretched hand.

Before this agonized child, all the magic he had spent decades mastering proved utterly useless.

“Damn it, damn it all…!”

Forcibly maintaining his composure, Mikael knew every second counted as Jaina’s life continued ebbing away – there was no time for self-reproach.

“We must seek out the Tower Lord. Perhaps some recourse remains.”

With a wave of his hand, Jaina’s prone body levitated off the floor.

“Even the Tower Lord cannot wield holy power, rendering healing magic impossible, surely?”

“It’s better than doing nothing and leaving everything to sheer opacity. If there’s even a faint glimmer of hope to cling to, we must seize it.”

“Didn’t you previously incur the Tower Lord’s wrath over some incident involving Jaina?”

Mikael flinched at Hilvenzia’s words.

-The Tower Lord’s daughter has been found collapsed. It seems another magician discovered her dragon heritage and plotted against her.

-So?

-Pardon?

-Whether that dragon lives or dies, what does it have to do with me?

The Tower Lord’s callous remark from that time still pierced Mikael’s heart like a barb.

‘Will this time truly be any different?’

No matter his relation as nephew and disciple, provoking Diamid’s ire further could jeopardize Mikael’s place at the Magic Tower itself.

Seeming to sense his inner turmoil, Hilvenzia offered a wan smile.

“Take the lead. Whatever transpires, we shall weather his scolding together. It ill befits adults to foist such burdens solely upon a child’s shoulders.”

Though straining to maintain her smile, Hilvenzia’s expression gradually hardened.

“…More importantly, I am the one who fed Jaina that Shizmel tart.”

She felt utterly ashamed recalling how she had eagerly presented the novel dish to Jaina, blissfully unaware of the consequences.

“Very well. Let’s go together.”

Though constantly bickering like an old married couple, in this moment their hearts resonated with perfect clarity.

Exchanging resolute nods, the two made their way towards Diamid’s study.

* * *

Slam!

Mikael forcefully flung open the door to Diamid’s study.

Without awaiting a response, he barged right in.

“My apologies, Tower Lord, but there is an urgent matter!”

None of Mikael’s usual playfulness remained as he rushed out the words, not even sparing Diamid a glance.

“The situation is dire, yet all the high-ranking priests are currently indisposed. Is there no way for you to save this child’s life?”

“After consuming the tart I prepared, she collapsed and began exhibiting respiratory distress and vomiting.”

Observing Jaina’s clearly grave condition, Diamid inquired hollowly:

“A tart, you say?”

Memories from the distant past resurfaced for Diamid.

So distant he could scarcely even recall them… He too had once collapsed after ingesting a tart long ago.

“Could it be Shizmel?”

“Yes, that’s correct!”

Diamid stared wordlessly at the child hovering in the air.

If an allergy was present, her life could indeed hang in the balance.

Though he had since transcended to a realm unaffected by trivial allergies, the memories of his traumatic childhood incident still prompted him to avoid Shizmel entirely.

Yet this child had succumbed to the very same affliction he had?

“Tower Lord, if we do not act, your own daughter will perish!”

Mikael felt his patience fraying. With every passing second more precious than the last, Diamid merely stood there with a vacant stare.

As Jaina’s breathing grew increasingly tenuous, on the verge of ceasing entirely, Mikael cried out in alarm:

“Jaina!”

“…Jaina?”

Lifting his head, Mikael’s voice rang out in outraged tones:

“Yes, Jaina! That is your daughter’s name, is it not?”

“I believe her name was Ashrid, was it not?”

“What are you saying? This child’s name is Jaina! How could you be unaware of your own daughter’s name?”

Mikael raged furiously.

“Was it not you who passed down this Shizmel allergy in the first place?”

Thus far, Mikael had never overtly clashed with Diamid.

His emphatic appeals regarding Moben had constituted his greatest act of defiance until now.

But at this moment, none of that mattered.

The prospect of Jaina dying filled him with a sense of impending regret more profound than any other in his life.

As Diamid gazed upon Jaina, he murmured:

“Jaina, was it…”

Repeating the name once more.

“Jaina.”

The document from the dragons had clearly listed her name as Ashrid.

‘Jaina…’

No, come to think of it, he had overheard a similar name before. Though Mikael and Hilvenzia refrained from uttering ‘that child’s’ name in his presence, whenever he secretly observed her frolicking about the Magic Tower, a resembling name seemed to reach his ears.

-If we ever marry and have a child, I’d like to name her Jaina.

Jaina.

The name he had promised Bezrice to bestow upon any daughter they might have.

Perhaps that was why, upon seeing that child and hearing that name, he had instinctively distanced himself through feigned disregard – for fear of the resurgent memories of the lover who had abandoned him.

Trepidation that the icy walls he had painstakingly erected, fueled by resentment, might prove mere fragile facades concealing his own bruised ego.

Yet now…

A child bearing that very name lay dying before his eyes.

‘Because she is my daughter?’

The Shizmel allergy, inherited from me.

“…”

Diamid slowly approached Jaina.

As a magician, he possessed the power to end innumerable lives, yet lacked any ability to heal.

But… he was the world’s strongest magician.

Grasping the hair he typically bound together, Diamid manifested a blade of magic to sever it.

Slish.

His tresses fluttered down, scattering over Jaina’s prone form.

“Tower Lord, that’s…!”

The observing Mikael gazed at Diamid in stunned disbelief.

Healing magic was taboo.

Unless borrowing divine power, any attempt to reverse the natural order and manipulate life itself was prohibited.

Yet a practitioner of Diamid’s immense caliber could defy the world’s very laws.

With the sole condition of a commensurate personal sacrifice.

“…!”

Realizing Diamid intended to employ healing magic, Hilvenzia and Mikael’s eyes flew wide in shock.

For they knew precisely what he would forfeit through this current spell.

Long ago, a great magician had once remarked:

-For one who has ascended to such lofty heights as to wield the power of healing, why would you ever trade your talents and efforts for a mere single life?

Such was Diamid’s profound strength, and simultaneously, the magnitude of what he stood to relinquish. Yet he showed not an inkling of hesitation.

“Are you truly intending to expend your own life force and magic to save Jaina?”

For a magician, their power was more precious than their very existence.

Yet Diamid now readily sacrificed both his magical reserves and longevity without restraint.

Fwooosh-

A brilliant white aura enveloped Jaina as an intricate, geometric magic circle bloomed before rapidly dissipating.

“Ah…”

And the violent tremors wracking Jaina’s body gradually subsided, a serene calmness settling over her previously anguished features.

“She will live now.”

His hair shorn shorter, Diamid spoke those words.

Mikael and Hilvenzia could only gaze at him in a daze.

Though they had observed him for decades, the Diamid before them now seemed an utterly unfamiliar presence – as if an entirely different person entirely.

“Transfer the child to a room where she can comfortably rest.”

* * *

In the original work, Jaina likely would have fled to some corner of the Magic Tower, tears streaming down her face in response to Diamid’s cold demeanor and Mikael’s taunts.

Subsisting solely on her dwindling magic reserves, she would have resorted to snatching furtive meals in deserted moments, eking out a wretched existence day by day until her eventual confrontation with the dragons claimed her life.

‘But I didn’t follow that path.’

Despite Diamid’s rejection and Mikael’s derision, she had shed not a single tear.

At the dining hall, she befriended the alchemist Hilvenzia, interacting with numerous individuals including the protagonist Rosian, his companion Izren, and even Princess Elia – a divergence from the original narrative.

‘Is this why I met a premature demise?’

To prolong her life, perhaps she should have kept fleeing, defying her fate at every turn instead.

‘Was I never meant to indulge in even the smallest of luxuries?’

Her past life as Min Pobae, her current existence as Jaina – both had been utterly grueling affairs.

Deprived of the love all children deserve from their parents, she had been reborn only to endure abuse from her remaining relatives.

Would she forever wander from one life to the next, eternally unable to find a true sense of belonging?

Doomed to live her days buried beneath the cheapest, most accessible options, never awakening to her own preferences and desires?

If such an existence truly awaited her forevermore:

Unloved by anyone, denied even the most basic entitlements…

‘Then I want to die.’

Let me die.

Her vision blurred hazily as a profound lethargy seeped into her pain-wracked body, the agonizing sensations gradually receding into the distance.

Her eyelids grew heavy, the torment fading away.

—Jaina.

Yet in that moment, someone reached out and pulled her back from the drowning depths claiming her consciousness.

—Open your eyes and awaken.

Cradling her slumbering form tenderly, they roused her from her languor. That warmth, that tenderness – so achingly familiar.

—I don’t want to wake up.

—…

—I don’t wish to live an unhappy life any longer. I want to die, right here.

For a long while, silence reigned. Until finally:

—If your life until now has truly been so miserable, then allow me to be your anchor. I won’t abandon you to perish.

Spoken with an unwavering conviction unmatched by any other:

—From this moment onward, I vow to remain forever by your side.

And with those final words…

“…Huh?”

Jaina’s eyes fluttered open.